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Searching for an intern is like giving birth to a walrus. Out of maybe a hundred and fifty applications I have found exactly nobody worth hiring. You'd think a $12-an-hour, work-from-home, easy-going internship would be the most easy job to find someone for. All I want is someone with a little bit of industry - someone who will be happy to work, someone who will try hard and want to learn. But no. Instead, I've found a sea of awful - created by society, by laziness and by schooling that suggests that the only way to communicate is long-form.

Here're 5 reasons why I didn't hire any of them.

1) Nobody writes anything original anymore.

I don't expect much. But why in the world does not one member of Generation Whatever-the-heck seem to write an original email anymore? Not one person referenced anything beyond possibly saying "you write for Forbes!" My Twitter is constantly updated. There is information about me everywhere. If I read one response with even the smallest hint of self-propelled interest I'd have hired the poor soul on the spot.

2) Nobody writes like a normal person.

Every one of these form-lettered mistakes was a rolling torrent of overly-verbose garbage. I don't care that you were a young radio host doing whatever it is they do on college radio. I really don't care that you captained your dance team. Why should I hire you? Tell me about you. No, don't tell me you work hard under pressure and blah-blah-blah. Tell me in honest language why you want to work with me. Two sentences would have done. Not fourteen paragraphs.

3) Nobody makes any effort.

"Dear X" started at least fifteen of these form letters. One said "dear script-writing hirer." Another thanked me for my response. It was like watching an army of the world's laziest people nonchalantly ask me for money.

4) Nobody does anything useful.

As I mentioned, the irrelevant rewards that kids these days have had drilled into their heads as worth writing to a recruiter have become fodder for these letters. However, if you said you'd read a book that might be useful, then hey, I'd be interested. Maybe say that you've read some interesting philosophy that drives your thinking. All more useful than hearing you have a keen eye for detail (then misspelling my name) and that you were valedictorian. I'm from Britain. Valedictorian means nothing to anyone there. Sounds a bit Harry Potter for my liking.

5) HR and Schooling Have Made Everybody Dumb and Desperate

Thanks to an overflow of applications and lazy HR personnel, backed by schooling that teaches us that weird introduction-body-conclusion three-act-play of writing, every letter that comes in to a hiring director has become a mystery that must be unravelled to understand whether the person is worth talking to. People are desperate (but not desperate enough) to get read, and have so many places to send applications to, that they haven't even got the time to put together something that reads like a human being wrote it. School has taught us that everything is an essay, and that you must sound smart, otherwise you're never going to get that job.

The truth is, you should just be smart. Talk like someone who is worth talking to. You're probably going to get that job. You can even write a form letter, just make it one that's an emotionally realistic and friendly request that they hire you, because of reason X & Y. Not because you happen to be valedictorian.